RMW Ramblings

Remembering Isabel We are nearing the end of September and there have been  no  Atlantic hurricanes.  In 2003 we were not so lucky.  On the 19th of September hurricane Isabel came up the Chesapeake flooding us up to the windowsills.  When we finished recovery and remodeling I marked the high water line with a plaque on the kitchen wall.  The plaque is modeled on the Plimsoll lines painted on ocean-going ships to indicate the safe loading level for adequate flotation.  Several years later I further remembered Isabel with a painting of King Lear, accompanied by his fool, raging at the storm: "Rage, blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes!"  The storm shows many faces to Lear, activated by Shakespeare's breath, upper right.    

  Kids on the Seawall   Painted yesterday,  Kids on the Seawall  shows two towel-wrapped children watching a paddleboarder (A cousin?) Acrylic on canvasboard, 7x5 in.    

Another painting today,,  Hibiscus '  Yhe little bee reflects my  earlier miniature   Gold Bee.   Hibiscus Hibiscus , painted today.  The tiny bee mimics my earlier  Golden Bee.        

  Bos Bison   Here is  Bos Bison  which I painted in the style of last month's  Vulpes . [ https://rmw-ramblings.blogspot.com/2026/07/vulpes.html] Together with a much earlier painting,  Equus,  (2011) they form a stylistic group.    

  Chesapeake Fauna     For a gallery show twenty years ago, I painted a trio of Chesapeake Bay life.   Rockfish  and  Blue Crab  sold.   Yellow Perch  remained and hangs over my shoulder at my cottage desk.   Rockfish (striped bass) is my culinary favorite.  But  Yellow Perch  is my artistic preference.  

  Vulpes A Mount Salem Lane neighbor has been feeding a local red fox, which now hangs around. It inspired me to do a fox painting.  I painted  Vulpes  in a classical Greek/art deco manner mimicking my 2011 painting  Equuis.   An earlier fox appeared in my 2008 painting  Reynard Regards Kaitlyn where I imagened our granddaughter and the observing fox on the Canby bench in Rockford Park. It hangs in our stairwell in a frame I built for it.  

    Prancing Heron Finished yesterday,  Prancing Heron  has art nouveau and art deco references.    

  Stations of the Flag Francis Scott Key and The Star Spangled Banner O n September 14, 1814 lawyer Francis Scott Key was trapped on the British ship HMS Tonnant where he was negotiating the release of a friend being held by the British.  Through the night he witnessed the British bombardment of Baltimore's Fort McHenry.  Observing that "the flag was still there" when the battle was over, Key composed the lyrics of "The Star Spangled Banner" which was set to the music of the British "The  Anacreontic Song."  In 1931 "The Star Spangled Banner" was officially adopted as our national anthem. The flag that Key saw had 15 stars and 15 stripes, two additional stars and stripes were added following the admission of Vermont and Kentucky to the Union.   In my post card collection is this image of the Fort McHenry flag at the Smithsonian long before its 1999-2008 restoration. It is well documented that the flag was made by Baltimore seamstress Mary You...

Paintings With Glyphs 1 Often in my paintings I incorporate glyphs, small line-work elements.  Here are two paintings with glyphs based on actual American Indian petroglyphs spanning the continent. Girl of the Susquehanna  is a painting that occasional hangs over the fireplace at our summer cottage near the top of the Chesapeake Bay.  the Susquehanna enters the Chesapeake just a few miles away.   The scattered glyphs are modeled on petroglyphs from two locations on the Susquehanna River, Bald Friar, in Harford County, MD, and Safe Harbor, in Lancaster County, PA.  The Bald Friar petroglyphs were removed from the river when the Conowingo Dam was built in 1928 and are now in a museum.  The Safe Harbor petroglyphs remain in place and can be accessed by boat.  In my painting I have added color; the originals are cut into rock, not painted.   Canyon Greeting  is set across the country overlooking the Grand Canyon.    The glyphs here are ...

  A Pyrographic Frame Paintings to Fit Interesting found frames are both a challenge and an inspiration for my paintings.  A thrift store find of a pyrographic decorated frame (detail above.) was a reecent starting point  Pyrography or wood-burning is a decorative process, charring patterns and images on wood or other substrates with a heated tool.  Typically pyrography is a handcraft technique, but this acorn and oak leaf design was probably hot stamped commercially. The frame came with a print which I discarded and an oval glass cover. My first experiments with a painting to fit the frame were two watercolor sketches followed the frame's oak motif.  An oriole decending a tree branch, and then, a single oak leaf in autumnal crimson.    I found these to be boring and trite  The frame called for more color so I switched to painting in acrylic on a panel cut to fit the oval opening, "AJ in Blue," a little portrait of our great grandson on an ultrama...

  Mount Salem Nocturne I've done many paintings with a black ground and many paintings of our block of Mount Salem Lane and church.   Mount Salem Nocturne  fits both boxes.

  Floral Set I did this set of floral paintings in 2006, but apparently modified them in 2009 as indicated by the hyphenated dates.  I don't remember, but that might be when I added the flower names and glyphs.  

  Yuletide    Saints Saint Wenceslas The third of my   Christmas season saints is Saint Wenceslas (alternatively Wenceslaus). While his feast day is in September, he is associated with the feast of Saint Steven, today, December 26 because of the Christmas carol.   St Wenceslas, Svätý Vaclav, Duke of Bohemia (posthumously titled King) has in tradition been celebrated for his generosity and kindnesses to the poor. The patron of the Czech Republic, Wenceslas has long been venerated in Central and Eastern Europe. His tradition in the English-speaking world has been informed by the carol Good King Wenceslas published in 1853 by the Anglican cleric John Mason Neale, who overlooks our scene from his framed photograph. The seven-foot tall saint carries a jug of wine and a basket food for the poor, while his page, Podavin, follows with firewood. Wenceslas’s celebration in many of the Eastern and Western churches is acknowledged by his name encircling in tr...

  Herald Angel   We replace most of the paintings in our living room and dining room with Christmas-themed    art for the holidays.  I noticed that there was a spot that lacked a seasonal update so I just painted  Herald Angel.  

  Yuletide Saints Saint Lucy The second of my Christmas season saint paintings is St Lucy or Santa Lucia. The feast of St Lucy is December 13.   This painting and my St Nicholas painting share a rectangular metallic-toned border, but different in color, tone, and framing. Saint Lucy, or Santa Lucia, was a Sicilian martyr.   In her hagiographic tradition Lucy was punished for rejecting a pagan bridegroom by defilement in a brothel.   In later   legend her resistance to the betrothal was also met by having her eyes gouged out.   She is shown in medieval art and elsewhere blinded and, as shown in the painting, holding her eyes in a cup, but her vision was miraculously restored.   Her association with vision and light is corollary to the presumed derivation of her name from the Latin lux , light.   The coincidence of her feast day, December 13, with the Christmas season, and its proximity to the winter solstice and its association with Nordic pag...

Christmas 1978 A  Retro-Deco Christmas Card For our 1978 Christmas card I made Xerox prints of a line drawing, then hand watercolor painted them.  I was apparently inspired by the art deco cards and posters from my youth in the 1940s.